Workshops are drawn from Lisa’s forthcoming book

Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir:

Audacious Memoir — Rich, funny and moving personal narratives depend on a key moments in time to anchor the story and give it impact. In this class you learn to locate key memories using Lisa’s much-loved technique for finding the Shimmering Images of your life. Then you learn to link your Shimmering Images and flesh them out using sensuous detail and snippets of dialogue. You leave the class with a short piece of memoir and a technique you can use over and over again for writing other narratives. Audacious Memoir is the bedrock course in writing compelling memoir. It can stand alone, although its techniques are most effective as part of the workshop series.

Writing As Transformation — Everything is held together with stories. When you direct the stories you tell, you shape the course of your life. In this workshop, you learn to take your Shimmering Image memories and push their interpretation beyond personal event into a bigger story that moves readers’ hearts and changes their lives. You do this by first “getting” that everything is a story. That allows you to shape what your memories mean. As your newly envisioned past unfolds on the page, you reshape your future. Writing becomes transformation. This all happens in the class through guided writing exercises, small storytelling groups, and lots of writing. You learn to hear the language you use to tell your memories and practice the writing craft to expand those memories. Writing As Transformation is the next step in winnowing the memories that shape your past, choosing those that will define your future, and writing a transformative memoir.

Structuring the Memoir: Finding Your Life’s Narrative Arc — In any life there is so much that happens it is hard to know what to put in and what to cut out when you are writing a story about that life. To the writer, everything seems important. But compelling stories have narrative arcs, and if they do not, readers fall out of interest quickly, setting the pages on the night stand never to return to your tale. In this class, you learn what makes a narrative arc and how to shape your life material so that it keeps readers engaged to the very last page. You’ll learn about Heart of the Story and practice naming it in your story by working in small groups and individually. You’ll write, and rewrite, and rethink the elements that are essential to the story. Structuring the Memoir is the missing link that separates winning memoirs from the mundane.

From Average to Phenomenal: Three Craft Tricks — In this final class you learn the nuances of creative writing that make all the difference in the difficult world of publishing. You practice writing metaphors and similes that sing, tune your awareness to cliché-ridden language, and learn to speak with a fresh and vulnerable voice. You enroll in a kind of literary boot camp that catapults your skills to a stunning level of sophistication in a very short time. From Average to Phenomenal teaches shortcuts to the craft most writers work for years to learn. In the end we discuss which publishing option is best for you and your work.

WRITING CONFERENCE KEYNOTE ADDRESSES — Lisa inspires her listeners. Hire her to kick off your writing event. Lisa is great at revving up an audience with a passionate and informed talk about the importance of story, and the role of the writer as an artist of change. Attendees leave Lisa’s talks ready to dive into classes and workshops exploring the art, craft, and business of writing.